Name: Chicken in Caper Sauce (Alcaparrado de Pollo)
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Mexican
Ingredients: Two 3-ounce jars capers with brine; 1½ cups warm homemade chicken stock; 1 garlic clove, coarsely chopped; 1 small onion, coarsely chopped; 1½ tablespoons olive oil; 3 ounces (about ¾ cup) hulled pumpkin seeds; 5 to 6 tablespoons vegetable oil; Salt and freshly ground black pepper; 2 teaspoons dried Oaxacan oregano or ½ teaspoon dried Mexican oregano; 3 whole cloves; One 1-inch piece canela; 1 small crusty roll (about 3 ounces), cut into slices; 4 black peppercorns; One 3½-pound chicken, cut into serving pieces; ⅛ teaspoon saffron threads

Preparation info

4
servings

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The Food and Life of Oaxaca

By Zarela Martínez

Published 1997

About

This dish, like the Almendrado, is almost entirely Mediterranean with only one major New World ingredient—in this case, the pumpkin seeds replacing the almonds that would have been used in Moorish and Spanish cooking. I originally learned the dish from the Oaxacan cooking teacher Maria Concepción Portillo de Carballido.

Ingredients

⅛ teaspoon saffron threads
1½ cups warm homemade chicken stock
5 to 6

Method

Crumble the saffron into the chicken stock and let steep a few minutes.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the vegetable oil in a medium-size skillet until very hot but not quite smoking. Add the pumpkin seeds (carefully, since they tend to pop violently as they hit the hot oil). Cook, stirring constantl